Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Mother India's Children - Rabindranath Tagore

Tagore was awarded Nobel Prize for Literature in
1913 and let us celebrate Centenary Celebrations for Gitanjali Poetry
Collection which was awarded.

When one knows thee, then alinen there is a none,
then no door is shut. Oh, grant me my prayer that I may never lose the bliss of
the touch of the one in the play of the many. (Tagore)

"The traveller has to knock at every alien
door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to
reach the innermost shrine at the end." (Tagore - Gitanjali No.12)

CHINA - By Tagore

Once I went to the land of China.

Those whom I had not met

Put the mark of friendship on my fore-head

Calling me their own.

The garb of a stranger slipped from me unknowing.

The inner man apppeared who is eternalRevealing a joyous relationship

Unforeseen.

A Chinese name I took dressed in Chinese clothes.

This I knew in my mind,

Wherever I find my friend there I am born anew.

Life's wonder he brings.

TO SIAM - By Tagore

I come, a piligrim, at they gate, O Siam,

To offer my verse to the endless glory of India

Sheltered in thy home, away from her own deserted shrine,

To bathe in the living stream that flows in thy heart,

Whose water descends from the snowy height of a sacred time

On which arose, from the deep of my country's being,

The Sun of Love and Righteousness.

(In Thailand)

Simplicity is the best casket for gems of truth,
and these Balinese people, who had their seclusion, that saved their simplicity
from all hurts of the present day have, I am sure, kept pure some beauty of
truth that belonged to India.

(Bali - The Island of Thousand Temples)

In what remote age,

You and I have mingled at this place.

Our words and speech have tied their knots,

And our life has touched your life.

(Indians in South Africa)

In that early dusk of a distracted age,

When God in scorn of his own workmanship

Violently shook his head at his efforts,

An impatient wave snatched you away,

Africa, from the bosom of the East. (Tagore)

The same stream of life that runs

Through my veins night and day runs

Through the world and dances in rhythmic
measures.

I feel my limbs are made glorious by the touch of
this world of life.

And my pride is from the life-throb of ages
dancing in my blood this moment.

(Tagore)

The path is intricate,

Unfriendly the night,

the barred gates guarded by snarling suscipion,

that growls at the shadows of strangers seeking
home.

Send thy welcome signal,

O Rising Sun,

Open the golden gate at t ancient

Shrine of the East,

Where dwells the spirit of Man,

great as the grass that blesses the lowly dust

and meek as the mountain under stars.

(Tagore)

Man, the latest of species, is still an infant.
No limit can be set to what he may achieve in the future. I see, in my mind's
eye, a world of glory and joy, a world where minds expand, where hope remains
undimmed, and what is noble is no longer condemned as treachery to this or that
paltry aim. All this can happen if we will let it happen. It rests with our
generation to decide between this vision and an end decreed by folly.